36 | Country Focus: Sweden
SUMMARY
■ The UK accounts for around 20% of all Sweden’s exports
■Swedish Wood is the market development arm of the Swedish Forest Industries Federation
■ Stephen King has taken over from Tony Traynor, who has retired
■ Swedish Wood backs the annual TDUK Timber Design conference
BUILDING ON ANGLO- SWEDISH BONDS
Stephen King, new UK project manager for Swedish Wood sees opportunities to further develop the ties between the countries’ timber industries. Mike Jeffree reports
To say Sweden’s wood industry is invested and embedded in the UK market is an understatement. The origins of the Anglo- Swedish timber trade are lost in the mists of time. Today the UK accounts for around 20% of all Sweden’s exports, while Sweden provides about 40% of the UK’s softwood imports. The trades of the two countries are inextricably linked and intertwined. Understandably, the UK has from the outset also been a key focus of Swedish Wood, which was set up over 25 years ago as the market development arm of the Swedish Forest Industries Federation (SFIF – Skogsindustrierna). It’s the only individual export market which has its own Swedish Wood project manager.
Above: Stephen King is UK project manager of Swedish Wood
Despite the maturity of this trade relationship, however, Stephen King, who has just taken over the project manager role on the retirement of Tony Traynor, still sees scope for it to evolve in line with market development and to the advantage of the timber sectors of both countries. Another understatement is to say Mr King is steeped in the Nordic and more specifically Swedish wood industries and their trade with the UK. A former president of the UK Timber Trade Federation (TTF), his career started in 1984 when he joined Billerud’s sales department. From there on it was a who’s who of the big Nordic market players. He spent time at Stora, Iggesund, UCM, Fagerlid and then joined SCA in 2000, where he was sales and commercial director and went on to become UK managing director. “I got a great grounding from the start – while I was in sales, at Billerud my training didn’t
TTJ | September/October 2025 |
www.ttjonline.com
let me near a customer for the first two years!” said Mr King. “One opportunity really led to another within the Nordic industry, culminating with my 25 years with SCA.” He’s clearly had time to assimilate the Swedish management culture. “It’s a different approach to the UK’s; there’s generally a flatter management structure and perhaps a more consensual decision-making process than you find in most British businesses,” said Mr King.
His latest opportunity came about through a combination of circumstances. “I heard that Tony was retiring after over 20 years with Swedish Wood,” he said. “I was also set to retire from my SCA role in June 2025. I didn’t want to stop work completely, but nor did I want to work five days a week. I knew the project manager role was not full time, so I put in a call to director Anne Ryberg Ågren. It worked for both of us. The moment I truly realised it was what I wanted to do was when another company offered me a full-time role and I turned it down.” Mr King went through a three-month induction with Mr Traynor before he took over the role fully and acknowledges he’s got big shoes to fill. “Tony built up this wealth of knowledge. He handed me a whole hard drive of information and a library of thousands of project pictures. It’s an incredible archive of the Swedish timber sector in the UK.”
It further underlines how plugged in Swedish Wood is to the UK, that Mr King will work with its director of technology and trade, Johan Fröbel, who sits on the board of TDUK, and director construction, Susanne
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101
